A Soul For A Soul
by BorderlineWaxwork
Summary: A one shot in which Saren mourns the loss of his one true love and remembers their first meeting. Saren/Benezia. Read and review.


He missed her greatly - The soft touch of her skin, her sensuous kiss, the warmth of her soft body against his hard form. He couldn't accept it, her death disturbed him more than anything, and it shook him more than the death of his brother in the fighting following the relay 314 incident, it hurt him more with every life he took in his fight for the machine in which he now resided.

But the truth was, Benezia was dead, and Saren had loved her, more than any of his fellow turians; they were harsh, unknowing. Cruel to him in his youth. But she had understood him, she had tried to temper him, tried to keep him from rash decisions. She was his aide, his lieutenant and his lover.

He remembered meeting her, those very first moments they had spent together in his youth. She had hardly changed, but she had found him brash and unseasoned, roguish and charming. He remembered it clearly, their first meeting, he remembered that day particularly clearly in fact for two reasons. It was the day of his induction into the spectres.

He hadn't known what he was there for initially, all he knew was that he had joint orders from both Hierarchy Command and the Citadel Council. As the elevator halted in its tub at the top of its shaft, the glass screen door slid back revealing a long, narrow, tiled walkway. The walkway had an exceptionally high ceiling. He walked along and as he came to the end he was confronted with a sort of reception area. It was round, and in its centre was a magnificent cascading fountain enclosed within a waist high railing. The room was full with the various species from throughout citadel space, waiting to petition the council for various changes. Volus, asari, salarians, his own turian brothers and sisters, all present no humans in sight. Not one single ape present in that tranquil though bustling reception, for they were only granted an embassy two years ago and there were barely a thousand on that great floating city which he would come to know so well.

His first impressions of the Citadel Tower were that it was the edifice of the decadence and corruption at hearts of so many in the galaxy. But none the less, it's polished metallic tiled, salarian landscape gardened, and perfume atmosphere-ed beauty captivated him on this first naïve view of the City State at the heart of civilization. But this captivation came second to that which would follow his glimpse of the marbled decadence of the Tower. She approached from the elevator which he had just left, flanked on her left by a younger asari in a knee length white silken tunic, belted bellow her breasts with an indigo sash reaching slightly below that of her tunic and complementing the delicate and powdery azure of her skin, and on her right by an unusually bulky turian in full blood red colossus armour, the dark-masked helmet cowling his avian features and preventing identification. Her then secretary and bodyguard.

A woman in her position required constant assistance and protection. The then unknown-to-him asari Ambassador, to the neutral Citadel Council, Lady Benezia was dressed in a resplendent emerald silk rap around dress, embroidered with silver thread at the edges it was elegantly loose, just tight enough to accentuate her graceful figure. A figure one of the ape-women would kill to possess. Upon her head Matriarch Benezia wore a crown of pale yellow batarian lilies, their thorn clad stems clinging to her otherwise bare ridged cranium. To him, she was just an asari noble, another decadent though beautiful, politician.

The triad approached him, the ambassador and her secretary appeared to be having a charged, though subtle disagreement and the bodyguard's hidden features betrayed nothing of him. But as they walked towards him, he saw that they were heading past him, towards the steps and up to the council chambers. As they attempted to pass, the absent-minded asari secretary pushed into him, not noticing his presence. She was deceptively strong, and in her stride he fell against the railing's preventing sentients from falling into the fountain.

"Watch where you're going, asari, I might not be so forgiving in future!" he growled at the 'aggressor', not stopping to think that she might be important, or powerful. But a response did not come from the secretary's lips,

"Forgive my Aide, turian" the resplendent Matriarch smiled at him, exuding an aura of calm, "Liara is young and inexperienced."

The secretary, looked saddened by this, but instead of contributing to their exchange or even apologising, she looked lost, hurt. And all the older asari would do was smile beatifically at the turian, until,

"Forgive me, young man," she said, gazing across the stark white of his facial plating, a sign of his membership in the turian biotic cabals ", are you the new Spectre?"

At this he gasped, his mandibles flaring and the bright blue coronas of his eyes dilated in shock, his orders contained no mention of this. He was a spectre! That was why he was there! He fell back into the calm of the Matriarch,

"I didn't know," he whispered more to himself than to her,

"I apologise Spectre. I didn't know that the council hadn't told you,"

"It's okay, I'd rather know now. I hate surprises." He smiled at the asari, forgetting the incident, she was rather beautiful. And she was polite; he would never have guessed that he would fall in love with her. Him a common soldier; her a…

"Don't be shocked by the fact I knew before you did," She trilled, her face becoming neutral. He could tell that she was preparing to leave him, she was obviously important. And probably late ", I'm Ambassador Benezia. It's been a pleasure meeting you spectre, but I'm late."

He turned despondently to face the fountain, leaning against the railing; waiting for his appointment with the most powerful men and women in the galaxy. But as she floated up the steps into those halls of power, she turned and called after him, almost a whisper, as though he was the only one meant to hear it,

"I look forward to working with you Spectre. You're destined for great things, young man."

And their first meeting ended as she continued up those steps and out of his view.

The memory faded to the black mist of ordinary thought, and he shed a tear as he slumped in his cybernetic throne at the 'helm' of _Sovereign_.

_He_ had taken her away from him, the ape. Shepard had removed the only person who had been there for him in his struggle to preserve civilisation. He longed for her touch; her scent; the obsidian of her eyes against the violet of her delicate skin. He was going to rape the very essence of humanity in revenge, strip every last human of thought, feeling, being. He would make them pay. And the new implants _Sovereign_ had given him would ensure that the fate of that murderous species would be sealed.

But Shepard would live. Live long enough to become the puppet of that great AI.

_He'll pay with his soul_.


End file.
